Pebbles in the pond

Mistaken Identity

Part 48 of the ongoing saga of The Great Being, the One Self that manifests as each of us

We have been following the experiences of two Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, Melchizedek and Layla, here on a mission that started in 200,000 BC. As Blu and Ska, they are now well into their new life, around 40,000 BC in the mountains of northwestern Spain. At this point of the story, our Agents are no longer conscious of their true identities; the new brain has taken over their souls — for now. Previous episodes.

Stari-ki was duly impressed with the cave painting Blu and Ska revealed to him in the last episode, seeing at once its usefulness in training exercises to build his armies. Still in the cave, Ska asked Stari-ki the purpose of amassing these armies and he decided to tell them more about the Rebel mission. As Stari-ki spoke of other worlds and rebels, Blu remembered something, “and then it went away”, leaving Stari-ki to wonder, who are these guys?

Stari-ki led them outside the cave where they snuffed the firestick. He walked them to a little grassy clearing.

There would be one solid test — their fighting skills. The natives were good fighters but very limited in terms of the moves and countermoves in which he had been trained. This would be the litmus test to determine if they were natives or not. Could they pretend to be worse fighters than they are? He would have to incent them with a little pain to fight back and give it all they had.

“Look, guys, I have to give you tremendous credit for what you’ve just done. I’m going to be giving you a lot more of my own time, I can see that. You two deserve to learn everything I can teach you. One of the things I’m going to be teaching you is how to fight.”

He saw their reaction, which he read as confidence in their own skills. Good, that will also incent them to show how good they can be. “Yes, I know, you are already great fighters; I saw that with my own eyes as you cut down my men. But there are moves and countermoves you may not know yet. Let’s see how you do against me — two against one. Obviously, we’re not going to do anything to each other that would reduce the army’s fighting effectiveness — no broken bones, missing eyes, and so on.”

He smiled warmly at them, and they could see that he really liked fighting so much that he was into play-fighting, which they loved too. They all smiled and started circling, looking at how the opponent(s) reacted to each movement.

Stari-ki pretended a mistake where he lunged forward as if to push Blu, and Blu captured his hand against his chest and bent it backward, only to see a left coming at him. Blu released the hand and went to heel-of-hand uppercut Stari-ki while blocking the blow, but Stari-ki was ready for that…

Only a few blows and kicks got through in either direction and before long Stari-ki saw that they were about to pin him down and he wouldn’t be able to escape. He didn’t want them to think that in a real fight the two of them could beat him, and although he didn’t like doing it, the lesser of two evils was to escalate one level up from play fighting, and so he cracked their skulls together.

He stood up exultantly. His test had worked. These were no natives. Blu and Ska looked up distrustfully. He would have to win them back after that dirty trick. They stood up, rubbing their aching heads.

“Guys, forgive me, I’m always in a hurry,” he said in genuine apology. “I really enjoyed that, let’s do more of it. But first, have a seat. I want to tell you something.” They made themselves comfortable, Blu and Ska still ministering to their heads while raptly listening.

“You guys don’t remember it, but you’re not natives. You’re like me. You’re a high officer in the Rebel army — maybe even a Prince like me — you just don’t remember it.”

Blu and Ska stared at him in awe. It was too much to wrap their head around and yet it had the ring of some truth in it.

He went on with his re-indoctrination, telling them the same story he had given Aldus and that the three of them were actually Lucifer, living through these host bodies and brains. That was the problem — those brains. They could take over the Rebel consciousness inside as they had obviously done with Blu and Ska, Stari-ki thought.

“The brains were our own fault, of course,” Stari-ki said. “We did the genetic alteration that made the brain compete for control with the inhabiting consciousness, or soul, if you like.” Blu and Ska heard all this as if they had heard it before and Stari-ki read that in their minds. “It was a weapon system. If the backstabber’s Agents were to inhabit natives, they would be put to sleep and neutralized by this brain. We would do our part by landing Rebels on the planet, with the brains they were born with on another planet, so we would not have the same problem. But then we decided to beef up by inhabitation as well, having Rebel souls born into Earth hominid babies in utero, and that resulted in cases like you guys and Aldus.”

“I’m going to see if I can help you get all your old memories back. I don’t promise anything but I’ll do my best to wake you up to your true Rebel identities.”